Taming the Bad Girl (6 page)

I took a deep breath, as she answered one of
Gabe’s questions.
Mentally upbraiding myself even while I let
the soft tones of her voice wash over me.
It was so soft, ridiculous
really considering she was so hard inside. No, I let the breath out and
clenched my teeth shut. I would not fall into her clutches again, would not let
her play me for a fool. She’d no doubt like nothing better than me running
around after her like some sort of puppy. Watching as I burned for her, laughing
over the fact that she didn’t want me back…. Let the mysterious fucking Alex
have her.

A question was asked, to me. I answered yes
without even knowing what I was agreeing to. Everyone nodded so it must have
been the right answer. Still I cursed my lack of concentration. Now was not the
time to be letting my attention slip. Forget this evening. I’d get it done
alone. It was too dangerous to spend any more time with her. I’d end up doing
something I would regret, I just knew it.

 
The
meeting continued. Work plans were discussed, new accounts, team appraisals. I
listened with half an ear—just in case another question came my way.
Most of my time though I spent watching Lucy—against my will.
My thoughts scattered and confused. She on the other hand did not look at me
again. She kept her gaze locked on either Pam or Gabe and thought it was
unreasonable of me, considering my resolve of just moments ago, as the minutes
ticked by I felt anger building. I was saving her ass, wasn’t I? And doing it
without having to even bother her!

“How’s your new guy getting on?” I heard Pam
ask.
“The marketing assistant?”

Lucy laughed. “He’s good.
Only
twenty.
So young.
Don’t
worry,
I’ll have him up to scratch in no time.”

Jealousy filled me.
Swift and
shocking.
Would she bed this new assistant of hers? Like she did
everyone else? Like Alex? And why the hell did I care? Why now? Why after all
this time? Why couldn’t I get the fuck over her?

A half hour later the meeting came to a close
and Lucy hurriedly gathered her papers. Her gaze was on the table, her teeth
worrying her bottom lip. The confusion, the jealousy, the anger—they all joined
together and I growled. Why the hell couldn’t she just look at me! I imagined
bending her over my knee and spanking the shit out of her pert little ass until
she apologized.
For
what?
the
sane part of my mind asked. What
the hell do you want her to apologize for?
For
everything
, the insane part replied,
for
leaving me stuck in this fucking limbo.

Before I’d even thought it through, I shot a
hand out to cover hers, stilling her movements.

“We need to go over some stuff,” I said, and my
words were choked, even I could hear that. The feel of Lucy’s soft skin beneath
my own was like opening up the floodgates of my memories. The good ones, the
ones that made the last months of pain and anger even seem worth it sometimes.
What the hell was I doing?

“I…” She paused.
“Of course.
The budget.”

She looked up at the clock and I followed her.
It was nearly five. The day was coming to a close. Everyone would be leaving
soon. Why did that thought excite me? What the hell was wrong with me?

“My office,” I said. “Five minutes.”

She nodded, pulled her hand free from mine and
grabbed the rest of her papers. Her hands were still shaky, her chest heaving
beneath the scarlet dress.
So fucking apt.

“Lucy?” I prompted, though I don’t know what I
expected her to say.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Five minutes.”

Our eyes met and something, something all wrong
pulsed between us.
Stop this now
, the
sane part of my mind shouted. The insane part laughed.

Chapter Nine

Lucy:
 
You never understand
the whole moth to the flame thing until you fall in love. Then it makes
perfectly depressing sense.

I stood outside Giles’ door wondering whether to
knock or just stride on in. He’d expect me to do that, to toss my hair and send
him a flirty smile. It’s what I would always have done before the ‘night that
must not be named’. Everything was different now though.

I looked down the corridor, watching as one of
the cleaners, Carrie, zoomed past with her Dyson. She shot me a smile and I
returned it. Though no one else in the office would ever know it I had far more
in common with the cleaners than I did any of them. But for the grace of
bitchdom
I’d be doing the same thing right now.

I lifted a hand, dropped it and lifted it again.
What to do?
Ninety-nine percent of me
actually wanted to run in the other direction entirely. Run and never look
back. The other one percent was desperate to look into his eyes and feel again.
A little bit of pleasure for a whole heap of pain. What was wrong with me?

In the end though I didn’t have a choice—I knew
it. I had to get this done, he had my budget information and I needed it. And
maybe it would be easier now I’d accepted the truth.
Yeah. You tell yourself that.

I hiked up my tights, smoothed down my dress and
pushed the door open. Resolve settling across my body.
No choice.

“Lucy.”

Giles was against his desk, sort of half sitting
on it. He’d stripped off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. My traitorous
heart gave a little stutter and I shifted my gaze across to his laptop.

“Giles.”

“I wanted to go over the work I’ve done,” he
said. “So you know what’s going on. I should have done so earlier, my
apologies, we’ve been very busy.”

I nodded.

“Come see the figures,” he said.

He moved around the desk and settled into his
chair, and I watched him as he walked, feeling like all kinds of a fool. He
caught my gaze before I had the chance to look away and I felt heat rise up my
face.
Shit.

“You need to be around here to see the screen,”
he said, stating the oh-so obvious.

 
I gulped,
gave myself a mental shake and followed him round, dropping my papers and phone
on his desk before moving as close as I dared to look at the spreadsheet. It
was too close. There was less than a few inches between us—and the lack of
distance did funny things to my composure. I shivered. He was so close I could
see the stubble on his jaw line, his hair falling in disarray. How I wanted to
reach out and run a hand through those locks, to trace the pattern of his face.
I could just imagine his response if I tried.

“You might need to lean in a little here,” he
continued.

I did, holding my breath the entire time, all
the while frantic thoughts running through my mind. Surely he was bound to hear
the race of my heart, the shakes that were already beginning? My mouth was dry,
my legs trembling. I cursed the one percent, wishing I’d listened to the
ninety-nine.

“Look here,” Giles said, pointing to the
spreadsheet. “I’ve balanced your expenditure by moving across another
thirty-five thousand.”

I exhaled in shock. “Thirty-five….”

“It’s that bad,” he confirmed. “I don’t know how
the hell you blew so much, Lucy.”

Breathing out was a mistake. It meant I had to
breathe in again.
Which meant I could smell his aftershave.
It teased my nostrils and nudged a whole bunch of memories. He smelled like
citrus again. Clean and tangy and I shifted a little to the left, putting some
distance between us. Thinking instead about all the money I’d lost. It was far
more than I’d anticipated. The extravagant presentations, the bonuses I’d given
my staff. It all flashed through my head and I sighed. “If I get the account I
went for last week I should make about twenty,” I said. “And there are a few
others in the pipeline. The one’s I showed everyone in the team meeting.”

“That won’t make a difference,” Giles said.
“You’ve still got wages and suppliers to pay. You’re going to have to go in the
red this year and increase your earnings next year.”

“Right....”

“So your team will be putting a lot of hours in
next financial year,” he continued. “Gabe doesn’t want any redundancies, so
everyone is going to have to put a bit more time in.
You most
of all, Lucy.
You are their boss after all and this is your fault.”

“Yes.” It was easier to just agree with
him—mainly because he was right. Fact was I’d always had trouble with the math.
I was a creative person, not a finance type. How I’d ended up department head
was something that still shocked me. Whilst I could easily handle all of the
marketing activity I struggled daily with the HR and the money. Guilt squirmed
through me and though I loathed him, I sent Gabe a silent thank you. Other
bosses might well have insisted I fire a few people, and that would be my
fault. Those people jobless, not being able to pay their rent or feed their
families. I squirmed some more as I realized then that I wouldn’t be allowed to
go this far into the red a second year in a row. I was pretty damn sure Gabe’s
patience would not stretch that far.

“I’m going to need some training,” I said, and
the words burnt. The honesty hurt—mainly because it was to Giles. But something
had to give and it couldn’t be me. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. I needed
the money—badly. Yet at the same time I couldn’t put other people’s jobs at
risk.

“In what?” he asked.

“Budget management.”

“So you can’t handle that side of your job?”
Giles said and the edge to his words was way too satisfied for my liking. I
moved away from the desk, away from the citrus floating in the air, and faced
him with a good meter of wood between us.

“I just need a little bit of help,” I insisted.
“Pam’s offered, but she’s so busy and I’d feel bad taking her free time,
assuming Gabe would even let her.”

“You’d feel bad?” he asked, the tone of his
voice enough to tell me he doubted it.

“Yes,” I grated through clenched teeth. “Pam’s
my friend.”

“So she is.” He paused.
“Who
then?”

I shrugged, even as my heart continued to race.
Because this had to be a new low for me, having to ask for help from the man
who’d sent me into my tailspin. “I thought maybe one of your junior
accountants.”

Silence pulsed between us for a few moments. I
counted the pens on his desk.

“It might help if you actually looked at me when
you ask for help, Lucy,” Giles said softly. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s
rude to look off into the distance when you’re talking to someone?”

I gulped and met his eyes.
Looked
at him properly.
Why was this so difficult? Why did it hurt so damn
much? “Is that better?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly, his eyes boring into
mine. “I haven’t got any junior accountants to spare. They’re all tied up. It’s
the end of the financial year soon.”

“Right.”
Maybe I would take Pam up on her offer after all then. Ignore the
fact she was so busy and just be thankful to have a friend who was willing to
put herself out for me. She’d sort things out with Gabe if she needed to, hell
she had that man wrapped around her finger. “Forget I asked.”

Giles leaned forward on his desk, putting him
even closer to me. I gulped. “I notice you didn’t ask me for help.”

“Well, no.”

“Why?” he asked.

I gulped again. It was so damn hot in here and
why the hell wasn’t my heart slowing? I’d probably end up having a heart attack
in Giles’ office. He’d have to feel something then surely? That thought gave me
some satisfaction and I spoke before thinking. “We don’t exactly work very well
together,” I said. “We never did, even before….”

I halted, panic slithering down my spine. Why
the hell had I said that? After the night at the bar it was completely the
wrong thing to say. To bring it up again!
Shit.

Giles shot up and moved around the desk before I
even realized his intentions. I backed up, but there was only so much room
available to me. A couple of steps and my shoulder blade met the filing
cabinet.

“Before what?” he said, and his voice was
deadly.

I shrugged, trying to look composed, but failing
epically “Nothing. I just meant…nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, Lucy, by all means finish your sentence,”
he insisted. “Call it exactly what you think it is.”

The night
we fucked
. Wasn’t that what I’d said? I swallowed
and ran my damp palms down my skirt, wanting more than anything to push past
him and go home. Yes, home. Not to a bar or a club, but to sink into my couch,
pull a comforter around me and watch trash TV—just as I had the last few
nights.

“Let it go, Giles,” I said. “Wasn’t that what
you were going to do?”